Darian had read a bit in the library about the powers of Spiritual Guardians. A blessing could be used in a bunch of different ways, depending on the user. The amount of energy, its density, and elemental affinity basically determined your future.
Of course, in the case of the High Humans from the New Arcadia Empire, affinity changed after going through the Array. But at the beginning, back in that other universe, everyone picked their blessing without knowing about that hidden factor.
As for the spiritual root, pretty much everyone had an ordinary one... only those who went through an ancestral awakening were different. According to Rhea, someone with that kind of root had absolute potential, since they already had the foundation of a full blessing inside them.
In that other universe, people like that could pick an existing blessing and easily reach insanely high levels of power with it — even with just one ring. Or they could try creating a blessing from scratch... which was basically suicide, since they'd develop it way too fast.
That's why his brothers didn't even need to do that regular test like everyone else. They could go straight to Celestia Academy, but by rule, they had to be taken at the same time as the others.
Darian, though, clearly fit the same criteria — but he'd been recruited as if he'd had a regular awakening. Which meant something really strange had happened to him.
That only made one thing clearer in his mind: He couldn't go around revealing his power.
What if the Empire decided they wanted to study him and use him?
His black power already looked kinda like the Risen's. And the white one was pretty much a cheat-level healing ability. The stronger he got, the scarier it would become.
And what if they tried to control him just to use his abilities? What could he even do to escape?
All the answers were simple: Nothing.
He definitely had to rise quietly, without attracting attention. He could feel it — the Empire wasn't trustworthy, the High Humans weren't trustworthy. Just looking at what happened in Niara, even what your own eyes could see wasn't totally reliable.
Darian thought to himself, tense: '... everything in that book turned out to be useful and way too real. I was obsessed with that story for no reason. Now I actually have power that's super close to the main character's.'
Everything around him had always been so confusing, but now\... he finally understood the kind of deadly danger he was in.
"This ancestral root of his... I've heard of it, but it was always treated like some baseless legend," Rhea was the first to speak.
"He had a normal awakening, so he probably formed a mutant Root. That's even rarer than an ancestral one, and it depends on factors no one's ever been able to prove. It has similar potential to an ancestral root, though still a bit lower. Not even the Empire's methods can predict when a mutant shows up."
Everyone nodded, understanding. Leander muttered, "That explains a lot. The fact that you screwed up your blessing and still have such insane power makes sense now. Just imagine if you'd picked a healing blessing properly..."
Everyone agreed, letting out a sigh. But at the same time, they were all a bit hyped. There were no records of what someone like that could really do. Maybe he really could pull off the impossible and fuse all three blessings, creating something insanely powerful.
Darian, meanwhile, stayed quiet and deep in thought. In a year, after his brothers went to that universe and became Spiritual Guardians, he'd be able to compare himself to them — and maybe discover even more.
***
The next day, Darian woke up in a private room Damon had given him to stay in while he was at the clan.
He headed to the bar and, on the way, ran into Veyle, who greeted him shyly. Then, the two of them found Harper, Zeal, Leander, and even Rhea — all passed out at the bar after a long night of partying.
Everyone had been drinking in Oliver's honor. Now they felt a bit better, since they were about to recover something that had been really precious to him.
Darian learned the details during the night. In the Divine Protection Universe, Oliver's Summoner was a Dragoness, just like Darian's.
But while Oliver was still on Earth, she ended up getting involved with someone else who had Divine Dragon blood. It was really rare for anyone with that bloodline to actually get pregnant, so there weren't really any rules against it.
In the end, it happened. And to everyone's surprise, she didn't give birth to a normal child.
Even though they had a Divine bloodline, all the Mannaz in that universe were still half-human. So the baby should've been like a regular human. But a mutation happened, and her bloodline produced an egg — just like pure Dragons did in the old legends.
Thing is, mutations usually aren't a good thing. They almost always come with a big problem, and this was no different. The child inside the egg had absolutely no natural Yang.
All living beings had both Yin and Yang in their bodies. In species with two genders, like humans, men had more Yang and women more Yin — but both still needed to have a bit of the other. Even in single-gender races, both elements had to exist.
This was really serious. That child was basically destined to never be born. And finding anything with pure Yang in that universe was nearly impossible — they only had one galaxy to live in. But Oliver had a solution: he had the Blessing of Pure Yang.
Blessings were powers connected to the heavenly laws — miracles that could literally bend reality. His was a support-type blessing that let him manipulate Yang in a bunch of ways.
He told the people in the clan, and everyone helped him rack up tons of merit points. They needed a billion of them, so they made a deal with the Empire, and the egg was brought over to this universe.
It was impossible to bring over regular beasts to this universe, but eggs that were still far from hatching could be transferred. The reason was that the Universe of Heaven's Will barely had any power, which severely weakened anything that tried to be born here. In the end, they always turned into weak and mediocre beasts.
The S-rank had been confirmed by the Empire when the egg arrived. The mutation showed more potential than any other egg they'd brought over before. Still, whatever was going to hatch shouldn't be too strong — maybe something like a person with two rings, tops.
On Earth, Oliver had access to three times more power, just like the others. He was able to keep the egg close to him, constantly feeding it his Yang. One day it would hatch, and Oliver had taken responsibility for his Summoner's child.
Then the egg was stolen.
That sparked massive rage in everyone, and they were all ready to risk their lives to get it back. But now, everything was coming back.
How they were going to hatch the egg — well, that was a problem for later. But after explaining all that, everyone turned their eyes to Darian.
Everyone who had healing blessings in the past had some kind of affinity with Yang. And he had both a strange power and insane potential. Plus, he'd just played a huge part in getting the egg back. Was it destiny?
No one said anything. First, they had to see if he could actually do it.
Right now, Veyle gently woke up Rhea. She opened her eyes like she'd just had a normal nap. Then she let out a roar and woke everyone up.
Even though they'd all been drinking all night, nobody had a hangover. A High Human's body was super resilient — even getting drunk took a serious effort… and they'd all gone all in last night.
A new day had arrived, and nobody was wasting time. Finally, the group and Darian were going to train together for real.
Or maybe not…
When they got to the building with the big training area, Leander got a message on his card. Just like that judge guy had said earlier — he had to go collect all the points from the defeated.
"If it's this early, it probably means that bastard's dad wants to start something," Leander said dryly. "I'll go with my brother and mom. I'll be back soon. Start with the mental artifact — that's the most important thing for Darian right now, since he needs to carve his own path with his blessing."
With that, he left, leaving the four of them inside.